Impulsively
by DarkestWolfx
Summary: John didn't act impulsively. It just wasn't him. Alan was impulsive by nature, in fact any of them could be, but John wasn't. John was calm, rational, sensibly headed. Impulsive on John was rarely seen and harder to break through. Can be read as a tag to Companion. Spoilers for 'Impact' (10/12/16).


Just a piece for John as we finally saw something of him.

* * *

" _I rescue people."_ He thought she knew that.

" _Ok, I'm people, rescue me."_ She had him backed into a corner with that though.

He'd felt so angry that she'd stayed and that feeling hadn't entirely dissipated, but that alone was not now the only one coursing through his blood stream. There were of course the emotions he knew and the emotions – for all his intelligence – he did not, the ones which would far too easily sneak up and get the better of him.

" _EOS, lateral thrusters to full."_ EOS nodded. She understood. She always understood. Sometimes, he thought (for an AI) she'd learnt what emotions were far too well. She obeyed everything he instructed without question, and maybe one day, this state would take him too far. Question was, would she still listen?

Scott would go ballistic, absolutely ballistic at noticing Five moving and…

" _John, what are you doing?"_

…Brains was probably the safer person to have this conversation with.

" _Trying to save Captain O'Bannon's life."_

" _Oh, well then, c-carry on."_ Thank you, Brains, but he knew that was the plan regardless. _"Using Thunderbird F-Five?"_

" _That's the general idea."_ He didn't need to see Scott's face.

" _John, come on, if things don't go your way we could lose Global One, Thunderbird Five and YOU."_ Scott was just being the realist. He was simply pointing out the truth of the matter and how high the possibility of losing two pieces of their family was.

Rational, sensible John – even if he'd tried something like this in his usual calm state of mind – would have seen the sense of that, would have realised how much pain he could cause his beloved brothers if he went through with this, would even have considered it wasn't just him taking this risk… but as the saying went, he really was just too far gone.

He cut them off. He cut _Scott_ off.

He cut Scott of all people off with the last words, _"love to hear about a better plan"._ If they were now his last words…

It seemed to be going alright though. Thunderbird Five made it.

" _Thunderbird Five is now aligned with Global One."_

His focus had been so intent he hardly realised they'd made it already. He breathed: it felt like the first time in centuries.

" _Thank you, EOS."_ She had done a lot of the work after all.

" _However our fuel reserves are down by forty eight percent."_

" _Thank you, EOS."_ He couldn't filter the response in his overflowed mind, the sarcasm raining forth unbarred.

" _I just thought you should know."_ It began to occur to him she sounded upset, half-hearted, hurt. He couldn't even quite recall exactly how he'd said what he said, or even quite what he'd said. For all he knew right now he could have bellowed at her.

His mind was a hard to control as the comet was for Thunderbird Three. His actions as unpredictable as this whole situation.

And that was why he was facing failure. Failure and four bleeping red triangles warning him of the danger of continuing at this lesson.

Brains and Virgil telling him to hurry up was hardly helpful. EOS was kindly remaining silent, though he wasn't able to process the reasons for why that might be. Usually she was giving warnings too or making suggestions or digging up necessary information. She was doing _something._

Ridley was making a risky move. A stupidly risky move and he was giving her a hard time for, the same unfiltered language flying through. He simply perceived it as helping,

" _If the monkey bars are twenty two thousand miles high."_

" _John, don't help."_

Maybe it really wasn't sounding how it did mentally. His impulsive decision had affected everything in a matter of seconds, almost like something else had taken control of him.

" _John, debris from the comment is crossing Global One. Prepare for impact."_

There was that warning and here was him doing nothing.

Almost in the same instant though, here was him doing something. Something incredibly stupid what with EOS questioning where he was running off too and surely Scott waiting in the wings to berate him for this decision if he made it back alive or even in one piece. Neither seemed overly possible, but impulse was solely driving him.

He'd told Alan off for it so many times and his true impulsiveness was probably worse. Alan was impulsive every day of his life, however still managed to find reason. He was impulsive so little of the time that he really did fly off the deep end with complete loss of himself.

Why he thought venturing out was a good decision he would never know, but he did it. Brains was just trying to help and he wasn't.

" _There's another wave of debris heading your way."_

" _We know. We know."_ He was sounding as sharp as the flying debris.

Returning to Thunderbird Five (alive and in one piece) gave him a chance to breathe. Seeing Thunderbird Three sticking out of the comet gave him a reminder.

When all this was over, he had a long series of apologies he intended to make. He had a feeling he knew where to start.


End file.
